WordPress SmartPhone App & Publishing

Did you know that WordPress has a wonderful app that you can add to any smart phone that might be somewhat of a revolution? With this app, you can virtually publish a blog post, create a new page or make edits to your website while you’re on the go. This tool works with your own installation of WordPress (like my site setup on BlueHost) and also if you are using a free/paid WordPress.com site.

Don’t forget if you have a mobile / responsive theme applied to your site (I wrote about this topic here and here in “one of the steps to setup your own blog”), you can use your Smartphone’s web browser to edit your site. However it is a much easier to navigate in the app vs. the web browser on your phone. Don’t worry we will cover the mobile editing on a phone’s web browser later.

Many of the businesses I work with do not have a physical store location, only a small office not open to the public. They are out of the “Office” frequently and don’t have a PC or connection handy during the day to make changes to their web site. How easy would it be if an App existed for a SmartPhone that could allow you to create or edit pages? In my mind, this is the core mission for this app for WordPress.

So I started to pull together my thoughts for this topic using my iPhone 5c with the WordPress app . As I started to type, my eight-year-old said to me “oh you can edit your website and post from your iPhone? wow Well that means you can do update your website from anywhere!”. So I hope that is an 8 year old thinks it is cool and very helpful you would too.

You can be at the coast, the mountains, on a plane or a train, as long as you have a connection and the willingness to speak or type you can create and modify your website using this app. In the screenshot above you can see the example of me creating this post on my blog. It is rather effective and giving all the different options that you might need to make modifications to the site.

Since I am using my phone for this blog post, keep in mind you can upload images to your site directly and use the earlier post I wrote about how to use WordPress and the power of WordPress to modify images.

Is this post perfect? No, there are some errors (language / words) that the app more or less creates. Just like me, you will want to go back and touch it up using a regular browser when you can. However I wanted it to be raw to show you can use this tool for many things.

Drawbacks

Not all functionality exists in the application.

I have not tested on Android and it might be a little better with more options.

You have to dig to find where the controls are to add things like meta data (information that helps your post or page index better with Google or Bing) to help you drive traffic.

Like the image below – when it is “added” to your post you need to modify the size. That control is not available to you in the WordPress app.

You need to practice with Siri if you have an iPhone. Just like when asking a question or texting, voice recognition still has a little way to go.

WooCommerce does not “work” and you cannot add a product. However keep in mind you can go to your browser on your phone and do this.

Keep in mind this is not a replacement for a web browser experience, it is intended to show you that you can edit your web site and help you make changes or even blog like this post. So download the app, connect it to your web site and try it out… you may not need it today but you don’t know when inspiration for your company will hit you or that you want to tell people about a new product. More to come soon!